1st Edition

Speaking With One Voice Multivocality and Univocality in Organizing

Edited By Chantal Benoit-Barné, Thomas Martine Copyright 2022
    198 Pages 3 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    198 Pages 3 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This book explores the dynamics and challenges that underlie the ability of organizations to speak with one voice. Contributions by experienced and emerging scholars shed light on the nature and regulation of the communication processes whereby the many and diverse voices of a collective can unite, act, and speak as a distinct entity, thus contributing to its organizing.

    By focusing on communicational events, whether in the context of for-profit and non-profit organizations, political protests or social movements, chapters guide the reader through the diverse manifestations and concrete ways of dealing with the imperative for organizations of all kinds to speak with one voice. In doing so, the book creates bridges between different perspectives with regard to the notion of voice and its significance for the study of organizing; between fields of study; and between theory and empirical research aimed at investigating organizing beyond the boundaries of the formal organization.

    Offering a thorough and comprehensive investigation of the dynamics between multivocality and univocality in the organizing of various collectives, this book will be an important resource for scholars and students of organizational communication, management studies, media studies and rhetorical studies.

    1. Voice: A Metaphor and Its Significance for Organizational Communication
    Chantal Benoit-Barné and Thomas Martine

    2. Authority-in-Action: How Voices Are Negotiated through Idiomatic Formulations during Organizational Downsizing
    Helle Kryger Aggerholm and Birte Asmuß

    3. "I’m just saying": Multivocal Organizing in a Community Health Initiative
    Annis Grover Golden and Nicolas Bencherki

    4. Finding the Voice of a Protest: Negotiating Authority Among the Multiplicity of Voices in a Pro-Refugee Demonstration
    Salla-Maaria Laaksonen, Erna Bodström, and Camilla Haavisto

    5. Amplifying Voices: Hip Hop as a Mode of Engagement for Community Organizing in the Context of the Black Lives Matter Movement
    Clement Decault

    6. Taking a Relational Approach to Rhetoric and Discourse: (Re)Considering the Voices of Recycling and Sustainability
    erin daina mcclellan and Kat Davis

    7. Tensional Dynamics in Discussions of Social Responsibility: Voice Mobilization, Concern Negotiation, and Organizational Boundaries Co-Creation
    Alessandro Poroli

    8. "Centering [Voices from] the Margins": Negotiating Intersectionality as a Consultative Framework
    Khaoula Zoghlami

    Conclusion: Speaking with One Voice Is a Specific Form of Multivocality
    Thomas Martine and Chantal Benoit-Barné

    Biography

    Chantal Benoit-Barné is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the Université de Montréal, Canada.

    Thomas Martine is Associate Professor in the Communication & Culture Department at Audencia Business School, France.